By the American Civil War, we see a fairly fixed sequence of tunes for the American Reveille.
To transition from one tune to the next, manuals instruct the drummer to play a long roll between tunes.
In Bruce & Emmet’s The Drummers’ and Fifers’ Guide, we see a much more complex series of rolls after The Dutch. Why? And where does this come from?
In this article, I’ll briefly discuss where the long roll appears to come from and will focus on the origin of the series of rolls after The Dutch.
American Reveille Sequence: Rolls Between the Tunes
In the earliest records of the American Reveille sequence, most of the tunes transition with The Cheer or The Roll.
Evidence in American Fife Manuals
The first written record of a Reveille sequence appears in Hulbert (1807). A fife manual, his sequence is written out as one long fife tune. Between distinct tunes, he includes his version of The Three Cheers.
- Want to know more about the American Reveille sequence? Check out “The American Reveille: A British Origin?”
This is more or less imitated in both Robbins (1812) and Robinson (1818) where they also include the Reveille sequence as one long fife piece. Robbins, likewise, includes The Three Cheers between tunes, while Robinson includes only A Cheer between most tunes and places The Three Cheers before the final tune.
Here is an example of the end of the Reveille sequence in Robbins (1812). Note how the Three Cheers is performed before the Dutch. The Dutch is followed by The Three Cheers into The Scotch and Three Camps.
Evidence in American Drum Manuals
Contemporary drum manuals are also beginning to list a fuller Reveille sequence.
Ashworth (1812) and Rumrille (1817) pick the same sequence of beatings as the American Reveille and they both include rolls between each beating.
As we move forward into the American Civil War, fife and drum manuals continue to depict a drum roll between the majority of tunes in the Reveille sequence.
This is generally notated as a vague long roll, as seen in Kleinhanse (1853) and Nevins (1861).
Keach (1861) as a three-beat roll between all tunes; Howe (1862) has the roll between most beatings; Bruce & Emmet has a five-beat roll between beatings.
Even post-war, Strube (1869) uses a 7-beat roll between tunes.
This long roll seems to represent a very simple drum break, perhaps designed to give pause or weight to each individual tune.
We see in Hulbert that the corps marches while playing, but stands in place to perform the cheers. In this case, the cheers might act as a slight respite from the march.
Hulbert’s explanation of this marching performance might also suggest greater rest than is typically denoted in these drum and fife manuals.
The basic concept probably originates from the use of The Three Cheers played before and after beatings like the Tattoo, the Retreat, and the Troop. Here the tradition is somewhat augmented by playing between each individual tune.
The 8 Rolls: The Rolls Before The Scotch
Particularly noticeable in Bruce & Emmett’s version of the American Reveille sequence are the ornate series of roles at the end of the Dutch. These are a series of long rolls crescendoing to the middle and then decrescendoing until the end.
At first, these roles might appear to be particularly ornate and stylistic embellishments added by Bruce & Emmett, a typical critique of their manual.
However, we see that they are far from the first to use longer, more embellished rolls to mark near the ends of the sequence.
These longer rolls also appear in other mid-century manuals.
Both Klinehanse and Nevins include “The 8 Rolls” in this position; Strube later includes a similar ornate series of rolls as B&E.
Even in the earlier sources, we see Ashworth and Rumrille denoting the end of the sequence with a longer version of their rolls.
Because of their slightly different order of the beatings, they indicate to play the 8 Rolls after The Hessian, before The Scotch Repeat.
Where Did the Eight Rolls Originate?
While the Eight Rolls tend to be written at the end of the penultimate beating – after the Hessian in Ashworth and Rumrille; after the Dutch in B&E – we should actually think of the Eight Rolls as belonging to the beginning of The Scotch.
Want to learn more about The Scotch Reveille? Check out my page “The Scotch”, part of my discussion on the American Reveille sequence.
In the earliest drum beat manuals – Young Drummer’s Assistant (1780) and manuscript “Drum Beatings” (c. 1780) – we see that The Scotch Reveille actually commences four long rolls.
In both of these manuals, it’s fairly difficult to decipher precisely what is depicted by the notation.
However, we can make some educated inferences by looking forward to the 1815 British drum manual, The Art of Beating the Drum by Samuel Potter.
Potter’s manual was designed to merge the two separate English and Scottish duty calls into one united British duty. In doing so, he merged the English and Scottish reveilles into a sequence:
The Three Camps + The Rolls + The Scottish Reveilles + The Three Camps
Potter’s rolls before The Scotch are a series of longer rolls, some of which are notated with crescendos and decrescendos. The beating is also accompanied by flourishes on the fife.
Based on the structure and placement, it’s clear that these roles are the same as those depicted in YDA and “Drum Beatings”. Potter’s performance, and probably the 18th century manuals, goes as follows:
The rolls seen here in these British manuals are very similar to the performance depicted in B&E and the official post-ACW version.
This performance also matches the description and concept of Ashworth’s and Rumrille’s eight rolls.
Conclusion
From this survey, we can clearly see that the longer, more embellished rolls used by B&E at the end of The Dutch are not mere extraneous embellishments added by Bruce and Emmett but, in fact, come from a longer original tradition in the Scottish duty.
In contrast, the shorter rolls or cheers used to separate each beating in the American Reveille sequence have a less absolute origin. They almost certainly stem from the longer tradition of The Three Cheers used for major duty calls.
If you’d like to learn more about the American Reveille sequence on the specific songs used within it, check out my various pages as I explore the possibility that the typical American sequence actually has British origins. I also break down many of the different beatings looking for their origin in other armies.
If you would like to improve your double stroke rolls in order to better perform the rolls between tunes and the rolls before the Scotch Reveille, check out my practice guide improving your double stroke rolls.
